When I went to join them in the lounge, Darren was perched on an arm of the sofa holding a glass of whisky.
'You'll have a hangover in the morning.'
'No I won't.'
Vincent said, 'My fault, for encouraging him, a glass of malt whisky on his first ever night in Scotland... was it the wrong thing to do?'
'No, of course not. I'm tired after the drive. Take no notice of me.'
Darren held the glass out towards me with a quarter of an inch of whisky remaining. 'Do you want to finish it? It's too much for me really.'
'No, you deserve a glass... well, let me taste it.' After I had taken a sip Vincent coaxed me into accepting a glass of my own, dribbling into it such a tiny quantity of malt whisky that to refuse would have been rude. We watched TV and saw a late weather forecast that threatened overnight snow, then went up to bed. Darren thumped up the stairs in front of me and crashed into his room.
In the morning he had a definite aura of wanting to be left to nurse his headache, but Lizetta helped him recover by giving him fruit juice and a cooked breakfast. He helped her clear up in the kitchen afterwards, whilst Vincent continued his policy of letting others do the housework. A couple of times Lizetta called on him to do something for her, to empty the kitchen waste bin and to lift a heavy bag of potatoes, and I realized that they were enjoying playing the traditional roles of man and wife. To an extent Darren and I found ourselves acting the roles of the children, two good boys who offered to help lay the table, clear away and wash up. They referred to us as boys, as in: 'You boys go off on your own if you want to. You're welcome to join us for a look around the town, but do whatever you boys feel like doing.'
Three or four inches of snow had fallen during the night. I was not particularly keen to take the van into Perth after so many hours at the wheel yesterday, and we all travelled into town in Vincent's hired car. We stopped first at some gardens which Darren said were famous for rhododendrons and varieties of heather, but hardly anything of the plants could be seen under the snow. Vincent had one of those expensive cameras with all sorts of settings and attachments and took photographs of us beside an ornamental shelter, and asked Darren to photograph Lizetta and himself together.